The Shadow of Napoleon Upon Lee at Gettysburg
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Papers of the 2017 Gettysburg National Military Park Seminar The Shadow of Napoleon upon Lee at Gettysburg Charles Teague Every general commanding an army hopes to win the next battle. Some will dream that they might accomplish a decisive victory, and in this Robert E. Lee was no different. By the late spring of 1863 he already had notable successes in battlefield trials. But now, over two years into a devastating war, he was looking to destroy the military force that would again oppose him, thereby assuring an end to the war to the benefit of the Confederate States of America. In the late spring of 1863 he embarked upon an audacious plan that necessitated a huge vulnerability: uncovering the capital city of Richmond. His speculation, which proved prescient, was that the Union army that lay between the two capitals would be directed to pursue and block him as he advanced north Robert E. Lee, 1865 (LOC) of the Potomac River. He would thereby draw it out of entrenched defensive positions held along the Rappahannock River and into the open, stretched out by marching. He expected that force to risk a battle against his Army of Northern Virginia, one that could bring a Federal defeat such that the cities of Philadelphia, Baltimore, or Washington might succumb, morale in the North to continue the war would plummet, and the South could achieve its true independence. One of Lee’s major generals would later explain that Lee told him in the march to battle of his goal to destroy the Union army. Another wrote of Lee’s expressed intention to ruin his enemy. And after the war, the then-President of Washington College confided to a former officer and current faculty member that it had indeed been his expectation that he could do so. In a war in which dozens of battles had already been fought, such a possibility seemed unlikely. The only person in recent world history to have done so on a grand scale was Napoleon Bonaparte, and that was decades earlier. Yet that idea was being nurtured in the mind of R.E. Lee. It is common among strategic military thinkers and researchers to reference Lee’s efforts at reapplying Bonaparte’s principles during the Gettysburg Campaign. Three examples shall suffice: “The fulfillment of Lee’s design demanded a climactic, Napoleonic battle,” wrote respected military historian Russell Weigley. Likewise, noted Larry Addington: “He believed 11 Papers of the 2017 Gettysburg National Military Park Seminar that the war could only be won by carrying it to the soil of the North and there winning Napoleonic victories…” And two other renowned analysts, Thomas Connelly & Archer Jones, reflected upon the “...the Napoleonic-Jominian strategy grasp he displayed” in that campaign. Bonaparte was repeatedly successful not only in winning battle, but doing so decisively, a goal imagined by Lee. Such teasers naturally raise the question, how so?1 Napoleon revolutionized armed combat on a massive scale. Scholars of succeeding generations would stand in awe of him. Frederic Louis Huidekoper raved that “strategy… attained its zenith in Napoleon.” Cyril Falls described him as being “of the highest genius,” one who did in fact “transform war.” Peter Paret wrote of him as having “no parallel,” commanding with “profound” impact.2 These are not belated assessments, but echoes of earlier judgments. The most respected of early 19th Century writers touted the value of using Bonaparte as a model for war. Baron Simon Francois Gay de Vernon, an instructor in the École “polytechnique” (founded by Napoleon) did so in writing an influential treatise in 1805, translated into English in 1817. Baron Antoine Henri de Jomini became famous in his interpretation of Napoleon. And from West Point, Dennis Hart Mahan, having sojourned in France 1826-30 to study the great Napoleon Bonaparte, who influenced master, became an American exponent, writing that to military theory throughout the 19th Bonaparte “we owe those grand features of the art [of Century. (New York Public Library) war], by which an enemy is broken and utterly dispersed by one and the same blow.” Carl von Clausewitz later summarized his impact, declaring “…all methods formerly usual were upset” by him. 3 Americans who delve into a study of the Civil War are often surprised at the French nomenclature everywhere apparent: caisson, corps, campaign, forage, bivouac, echelon, hors-de- combat, enfilade, aide-de-camp, chevron, lunette, abatis, élan, redoubt, deploy, vidette, chausser, epaulette, prolonge, kepi, defilade, palisade, etc. That is understandable through Mahan’s explanation that “the systems of tactics in use in our service are those of the French.” And this is entirely due to Bonaparte and his various interpreters. And the awe in which he was held was broadly based. Allen Nevins wryly commented, “All the younger generals then fancied themselves embryonic Napoleons and cultivated Napoleonic rescripts, except a few who thought themselves Wellington.” Napoleon Bonaparte (1769-1815) had commanded in more than fifty battles, most of them stunning victories. How so? “If I were to write of my campaigns people would indeed be astonished to see that... my judgment and abilities were always exercised only in conformity with principles.” 4 12 Papers of the 2017 Gettysburg National Military Park Seminar The Education of Robert E. Lee in Napoleonic Principles When Cadet R.E. Lee entered the United States Military Academy, it was modeled after the École “polytechnique,” the French academy designed by Bonaparte for the education of his officers. Five of the first six books Lee drew out of the West Point library concerned Napoleon. Notably, they were written in French, a required language taught at the academy but one that Lee had already mastered (his grades in each of his three years of French studies were over 98). And it wasn’t simply a personal interest for Lee at West Point. Thirteen textbooks used in his classes were either in French, or English translations from the French. Indeed, Gay de Vernon’s Treatise on the Science of War and Fortification had become a mainstay at the academy. Mahan was during this time on his academic furlough to France, although his exacting framework for military studies based upon Napoleon had already been set. Weigley offers a revealing statement about the U.S. Military Academy in that era: “So strong was the magnetic attraction of Napoleon to nineteenth century soldiers that American military experience, including the generalship of Washington, was almost ignored in military studies here.” 5 Upon graduation in 1829, Lee was assigned as an aide to General Charles Chouteau Gratiot. Regrettably, we have little accounting of what happened in their experience together. Gratiot apparently maintained old-world contacts, as his daughter married the Marquis de Montholon- Sémonville, who under Napoleon III became French Ambassador to the United States. The general and lieutenant shared a keen interest in Bonaparte, and one can only suppose their conversations that may have taken place on the subject of his battles. As a key staff officer under Winfield Scott, Lee had an immediate involvement in war though Mexico. Scott himself had traveled to France in 1817-18 to study French military methods, and had translated some manuals from Napoleon’s army into English, though it is unclear how that may have influenced his strategy against Mexico. The principals of Napoleon had little application to subsequent Indian Wars, but Lee kept handy his personal copy of the 1838 edition of Jomini’s Précis de l’Art de la Guerre. Upon assignment in 1852 to become Superintendent at West Point, Lee had an opportunity to ponder the broader art of war as framed by Bonaparte. He corresponded with Jerome Napoleon Bonaparte and engaged in earnest discussion on the subject with Mahan. Indeed, the latter led a Napoleon Club for the small faculty and leading cadets with apparent participation by Lee, who designated a large room at the Academy for the display of Napoleonic campaign and battle maps.6 Douglas Southall Freeman summarized Lee’s keen interest in Napoleon while Superintendent: “Of the fifteen books specifically related to war [borrowed from the Academy library at the time] seven concerned Napoleon. His principle study was of Gourgaud’s and Monthonlon’s Mémories pour sevir a l’historie de France sous Napoleon… There is every reason to assume that he read these volumes carefully and that he became reasonably conversant with Napoleon’s military career… In the editions he probably used [were] Napoleon’s lengthy notes on Considerations sur ‘Art dé law Guerre…” 7 13 Papers of the 2017 Gettysburg National Military Park Seminar West Point Military Academy in 1850, during the era of Lee's appointment as Superintendent. (LOC) Lee was then not alone in his focus of Napoleon, as Peter Paret wrote, for the maxims of Napoleon were for West Pointers to be “etch[ed] in granite.” But Lee learned them as well as any. 8 Another officer finely attuned to Napoleon was Thomas J. Jackson, who kept his personal copy of Napoleon’s Maxims of War (published in Richmond) with him on campaign. Weigley observed, “Lee and Jackson were not so much disciples of Dennis Mahan or Jomini or of other interpreters of Napoleon than of Bonaparte himself.” Together, according to Weigley, they drew “more aggressive strategic concepts” from Napoleon than any other American commanders, with Lee developing “the most skillfully Napoleonic tactical generalship since Napoleon himself.” The discussions between the two Confederate generals on the subject of Napoleon must have been scintillating, but, alas, we have no record of them. 9 In summary, Napoleon’s shadow was a long one, touching many, but it was notably cast upon an America by the name of Robert Edward Lee.